对，就是这样。

好。通往火星的门户。

所以，我们现在就在这里，我们现在位于新近建市的得克萨斯州星基地。

我想，这是美国几十年来建立的第一座新城市，至少别人是这么告诉我的。而且名字非常酷。之所以这样命名，是因为我们将在这里开发必要的技术，在地球45亿年的历史上首次把人类、文明和我们所知的生命带到另一个星球。

来看一下这里的这段小视频。这就是它起步时的样子，基本上什么都没有。所以，他们起步的地方基本上就是一片什么都没有的沙洲。

显然，就连那些小东西也是我们建的。

那就是最初那种《疯狂的麦克斯》式火箭。

就是在这里，你发现灯光照明对那枚《疯狂的麦克斯》式火箭非常重要。

所以，是的，就在不久以前，这里还基本上什么都没有。在大约5或6年的时间里，得益于SpaceX团队令人难以置信的工作，我们建起了一座小城市、2座巨型发射台，以及一座为巨型火箭服务的巨型火箭工厂。所以，而且很酷的一点是，对于正在观看这段视频的任何人来说，你实际上可以来参观，因为我们的整个生产设施和发射场都位于一条公共公路旁。

所以，任何来的人，任何来到南得克萨斯州的人，都可以相当近距离地看火箭，也可以看工厂。因此，任何有兴趣观看地球上最大飞行物体的人，都可以随时来这里，只需沿着公共公路开车过来就能看到它，这非常酷。然后我们逐步发展到了如今的样子，StarVase 2025。

所以，我们现在已经到了大约每2或3周能生产1艘飞船的阶段。

现在，我们并不总是每2或3周生产1艘飞船，因为我们正在进行设计升级。但最终，我们的目标是具备每年生产1000艘飞船的能力，也就是每天3艘。

所以，这就是目前的情况。我正站在那座建筑里，那是我们的气垫船。

我们正把一枚助推器沿公路运往发射场。

你们可以看到那些超级厂房。

正如我所说，很酷的是，对于正在观看这段视频的各位来说，你们真的可以直接来这里，沿着这条路开车就能看到它，这是历史上第一次有这种可能。所以所有这些很酷的东西，你们，那条，那那边左侧的道路，那条公路是公共公路，你们可以直接来这里观看，我建议大家这么做。我认为亲眼看到这一切非常鼓舞人心，所以那就是我们的超级厂房。

所以，我们正在扩大总装能力，以便每年生产1000艘星舰。

嗯，是的，那还没有建成，但我们正在建。

那是一座真正庞大的建筑。我想，它将会是最大的建筑之一，按某些衡量标准，它会是世界上最大的建筑。

它是按照每年生产1000艘星舰设计的。

我们还在佛罗里达州建造一座超级厂房，这样，我们就会有2处设施，1处在得克萨斯州，1处在佛罗里达州。

实际上很难判断这些建筑有多大，因为你需要用一个人之类的东西作为比例参照。当你看到一个人在那座建筑旁边显得多么渺小时，就会意识到它究竟有多么庞大。

所以，当我们对比每年制造的飞行器数量时，你们可以看看波音和空客制造的飞机，星舰在某个时候为火星制造的星舰数量，很可能会与波音和空客制造的商用飞机一样多。所以，这确实达到了规模，非常庞大的规模。而且每艘星舰都将具备一种能力。

每艘星舰都比747或A380更大。它确实非常庞大。

然后就星舰星链卫星而言，第三版卫星的年产量约为5000颗，也许在某个时候会接近每年10000颗。而那些音速V3卫星，每颗的尺寸大约相当于1架737。它们相当大。

这可以与第二次世界大战中的B24轰炸机相比。

不过，与Tesla相比，这仍然很小。

所以，Tesla未来的产量很可能会达到那个数字的2倍或3倍。这样就能让事情有个参照：建造数量庞大的星际星舰实际上是可能的。即使从吨位角度进行比较，Tesla和其他汽车公司所制造的复杂产品吨位仍然远远超过SpaceX。这其实就是说，这完全可以实现。

这些数字虽然按照传统航天标准高得惊人，但人类有能力实现，因为其他行业已经实现过这样的数字。进展以在火星上建立自给自足文明的时间表来衡量。这就是我们在星基地衡量进展的方式。因此，随着每一次发射，尤其是在星舰发展的早期阶段，每次发射都是为了越来越深入地了解，要让生命实现多行星化需要什么，并不断改进星舰，直到它最终能够把数十万人、乃至数百万人送往火星。

理想情况下，我们可以把任何想去火星的人带去火星？我们可以把他们带到火星，并随之带去、带去让火星实现自给自足所必需的全部设备，这样在最坏的情况下，火星也能自行发展。关键是要走到人类命运的根本岔路口，也就是即便来自地球的补给飞船因任何原因停止抵达，火星仍能继续发展。到那时，我们就实现了文明韧性；如果地球出了什么问题，火星或许能前来拯救地球。

或者也许地球可以前来拯救火星，但是，嗯，但是拥有2颗都、都、能够、都、都能自给自足且强大的行星，我认为这对文明的长期生存会极其重要。

所以，就是，我认为任何一个文明，如果是多行星文明，而不是单行星文明，都可能延续得，也许，我不知道，长10倍，也许还要长得多。因为总有某种可能，你知道，我们人类可能会做出一些疯狂的事，比如第三次世界大战。希望不会，但这是有可能的。或者可能发生某种自然事件，比如流星、超级火山，或某种我们意料之外的事情。

那么，如果你只有1颗行星，那可能就完了。但如果我们有2颗行星，我们就能继续前进，然后最终越过火星，或许前往小行星带、木星的卫星以及更远的地方，并最终前往其他恒星系；我们可以置身群星之间，让科幻不再是虚构。所以，为了实现这个目标，我们必须，我们必须制造可快速重复使用的火箭，从而让，让每次飞行的成本、运往火星的每吨成本尽可能低。

这是必不可少的。所以，对于可快速重复使用的火箭，我说其实是4小时，或者它就像个海盗，就像是快速重复使用。可靠的火箭才是关键。Rrrr。

现在，我们已经祝贺了SpaceX团队在接住一枚巨型火箭方面取得的惊人进展。

所以，SpaceX团队能够多次使用一种非常新颖的方法，用巨型筷子从空中接住有史以来最大的飞行物体，这真的令人震撼。

我是说，你们以前见过那样的情景吗？

是的，再次表示祝贺。那是一项令人难以置信的成就。

所以，我们用这种前所未有的方式接住它，是为了实现其中可快速重复使用的部分，为了让火箭能够快速重复使用。所以，如果它，如果这个巨大的超重型助推器，它的直径大约是30英尺。

如果它用着陆支腿降落在着陆台上，我们随后就必须把它吊起来，收起支腿，再把它放回发射台。而且，运输这么巨大的东西相当困难。但如果我们用一开始就用来把它放入发射支架的同一座塔架接住它，那就是实现快速重复使用的最佳结果。所以，它实际上会被当初将它放入发射、发射环的同一组机械臂接住，然后立刻被放回发射环。

所以原则上，超重型助推器可以在着陆后1小时内再次飞行。所以无论如何，它大约5或6分钟后就会返回。而且，而且随后会被塔架机械臂接住，放回发射支架。然后，你可以在大约30至40分钟内重新加注推进剂，并且，并且在它上面放置一艘飞船。原则上，整个助推器可以每小时再次飞行一次，也许每2小时一次，这样，可以给它多一点额外时间。

但我们就说，它，它非常，它已经处在快速重复使用的极限上了。

然后，我们接下来还需要做的是也把飞船接住。

所以我们还没有做到这一点，但我们会做到。

所以这就是我们希望在今年晚些时候演示的内容，也许最快在2或3个月后。

然后飞船会被放到助推器顶部，接着再次加满驱避剂，并与飞船一起再次飞行。这需要更长一点时间，因为它必须绕地球飞行几圈，直到地面轨迹再次经过发射台上空。但飞船的设计目标也是每天重复飞行多次。

这是，这台新的Raptor 3，它是一台非常出色的发动机。请为Raptor团队热烈鼓掌。这非常令人兴奋。

所以Raptor 3的设计不需要基本隔热罩，从而节省底部的大量质量，并且实际上提高了可靠性。这样一来，如果，如果出现例如Raptor发动机少量燃料泄漏的情况，它只会泄漏到现有的炽热等离子体中，实际上不会有什么影响。而当发动机被封闭在一个箱体中时，燃料泄漏确实是一件非常可怕的事。所以这是一台Raptor 3。它可能还需要尝试几次，但它将会是、是有效载荷能力、发动机效率和可靠性的一次巨大提升。

所以这确实是一台革命性的发动机。Raptor 3确实，我会说，有点像外星科技火箭发动机。

我是说，就连行业专家在我们展示Raptor 3的照片时都说，那台发动机还没有完成。于是我们就说，好吧，这就是还没有完成的发动机。正以一种前所未有的效率水平点火运行。

所以。

我是说，那真是一台干净利落的发动机。

所以，为了把发动机做成那样，我们必须简化。设计中的许多部件都把次级流体回路和电子设备整合进发动机本身的结构中。因此，一切都被容纳并保护起来。坦率地说，这是一个工程奇迹。

然后，对火星而言另一项关键技术是在轨推进剂转移。你可以把它想成类似飞机的空中加油，但在这里是在轨为火箭补充推进剂，这是以前从未实现过的。但它，你知道，在技术上是可行的。

总觉得这些东西有点不宜在工作场合观看，听着，你总得用某种方式转移流体。没办法，这件事必须完成。

所以两艘星舰会靠在一起，其中一艘星舰会转移燃料和氧气。而且实际上大部分质量都是氧气。转移的物质中几乎80%是氧气，略多于20%是燃料。而且，而且所以你，你把一艘装满有效载荷的星舰送入轨道，然后再发射一大批其他星舰，为那艘星舰补充推进剂。一旦推进剂贮箱基本装满，你就可以启程前往火星。

前往火星或者月球或者。对。所以这是一项重要技术，希望我们明年应该能演示它。

所以接下来，最难解决的问题之一是可重复使用的隔热罩。

所以从来没有人开发出真正可重复使用的轨道级隔热罩，因此这极其难以实现。所以即便是航天飞机，航天飞机的隔热罩也需要数月翻修，基本上就是修复破损的隔热瓦，检测每一块隔热瓦。而因为要承受再入时的极端高温和压力，这是一个极其困难的问题。

而真正能够承受这种高温的东西只有先进的、某种陶瓷一类的材料，你知道，基本上是玻璃、氧化铝，有时是碳。碳。但实际上，能够以可重复使用的方式承受住、而不被侵蚀、不脱落或不开裂，能够承受再入应力的材料非常、非常少。所以这将是第一次做到这一点，也就是开发出可重复使用的轨道级隔热罩。

而且显然，它必须极其可靠。

所以我认为，我们未来几年都会致力于这件事，不断完善隔热罩。

这非常，这是能够实现的事情。所以我们并不是在尝试做一件无法实现的事。完成这件事处于物理学允许的范围内。只是完成起来极其困难。

而火星，火星大气是二氧化碳，乍看之下这似乎更好，但实际上最终会更糟，因为当CO2变成等离子体时，你会，你实际上最终会发现，进入火星大气层时遇到的游离氧比进入地球大气层时更多。所以地球大气中的氧气只有大约20%。而火星最终基本上会是这个数字的2倍多，在考虑到CO2变成等离子体并产生碳和O2时，可能达到3倍。

所以，这会试图氧化隔热罩，基本上就是烧毁隔热罩。所以这就是为什么我们，我们在CO2大气中进行了非常严格的测试，因为它不仅必须适用于地球，也必须适用于火星。

而且我们希望地球和火星使用同一种隔热罩。因为隔热罩还有许多其他方面的因素，比如确保隔热瓦不会开裂、脱落或发生任何类似情况。

所以我们希望在地球和火星使用相同的隔热罩结构、相同的材料。这样我们就可以在前往火星之前，在地球上对它测试数百次，并确信它前往火星时会正常工作。

所以我们正在开发一些下一代星舰，与当前一代相比会有多项改进。所以例如，它更高，并且有一个更好的进入，有点像一个。飞船与助推器之间的级间段。你可以看到那里那种、那种支柱，这能让火焰更容易。啊，就在那儿。

在进行热分离时，也就是在助推器发动机仍在点火工作的同时点燃飞船发动机，来自、来自飞船发动机的火焰就能更容易地穿过、穿过新级间段的开放式支柱排出。而在这种情况下，我们会把这个支柱式级间段带回来，而不是把它扔掉。

所以这里高度增加了一点，72米，原来约69米，推进剂容量。我想我们可能还会再提高一点，也许达到3,700吨。

从长期来看。我猜我们可能会在4,000吨左右，而但只是大概刚超过8，你知道，大概8,000，可能是8,300左右。这个还会继续上升。我猜最终这里会达到4,000吨，推力接近10,000吨。但这算是下一个、下一个层级，或者说是超级重型助推器的下一个版本。

所以助推器底部看起来会有点光秃秃的，因为、因为猛禽3发动机不需要隔热罩。所以看起来、它看起来像是少了某些部件。但那只是因为、因为猛禽隔热罩不，猛禽3不需要隔热罩。所以它就、它就立在那里，那里，沐浴在燃烧的等离子体中。

但它轻得多。

对。集成式热分离级。

我觉得它看起来很棒。

而且这个变化有一点、有一点更，有一点更长，能力也更强。

推进剂容量将提高到1550吨。

我猜从长期来看，最终可能会比这个高20%。

而且，对，你可以看到隔热罩更流线了。边界平滑得多，因为隔热罩延伸到背风侧的边界非常平滑。

不再有锯齿状的隔热瓦。

我觉得它看起来非常流线。

所以在这个版本中，我们仍然有6台发动机，但未来的版本会有9台。但同样，猛禽3减轻了质量、提高了比冲。它，这个星舰第3版确实是我认为实现了所有关键要素的版本。我的意思是，一般来说，任何新技术都需要3次重大的、任何重大的、任何新技术都需要3次重大迭代，才能真正良好运作。

而有了猛禽3，有了、还有星舰和助推器第3版，我们、它应该能够实现我刚才提到的所有事情，也就是一枚能够快速重复使用、可靠并具备在轨加注能力的火箭。

基本上，让生命实现多行星化所必需的一切要素，都将通过星舰第3版实现；我们的目标是在今年年底进行它的首次发射。

对，所以你可以看到，左边大致是目前的情况，中间是今年年底会达到的情况。而正如我刚才所说的，大致是长期来看可能会达到的情况。

对，142米。

所以，中间那个将、将完全具备执行火星任务的能力，此后还会有大量性能改进。

而且，正如猎鹰 9 号的情况一样，我们最终总会把火箭造得更长并提高有效载荷。所以，这、这、这就是相当直截了当的行动方案。但需要强调的是，即使是将在今年年底发射的火箭，也将有能力使生命成为多行星物种；此后，这、这就只是继续打磨火箭的效率和能力，降低每吨成本，并降低每人前往火星的成本。

而且就像我说的，最终要做到让任何想搬去火星、帮助建设一个新文明的人都能够这样做。所以外面的各位，想想看，那会有多酷？而且即使你不想这么做，也许你有一个儿子或女儿想这么做，或者有一个朋友想这么做。我认为，能够去一个新星球帮助建设一个新文明，将会是一个人所能经历的冒险中最棒的冒险。

所以对，最终我们会、我们会有 42 台发动机，这是不可避免的。

正如伟大的先知，道格拉斯·亚当斯在他的，你知道，那本《银河系漫游指南》中所预言的那样，生命意义的答案是42。

所以，星舰组合体最终必然会有42台发动机。

至于送入轨道的有效载荷，了不起之处在于它是200吨，你知道，星舰将在完全可重复使用的情况下拥有200吨的入轨有效载荷。所以这相当于土星5号登月火箭能力的2倍。土星5号登月火箭是完全一次性的。星舰完全可重复使用，但它的入轨有效载荷将是成功进入轨道的、第二大的火箭，也就是土星5号的2倍。

事实上，如果不考虑可重复使用，星舰将拥有大约400吨的入轨有效载荷。所以我的意思是，这是一枚，这是一枚非常大的火箭。所以，但是你需要一枚大火箭，你知道，才能，你知道，让生命成为多行星物种。然后在这个过程中，我们还可以做一些非常酷的事情，比如建一个像月球基地阿尔法那样的月球基地，因为那里更久。以前有一部关于月球基地阿尔法的电视剧。

你不能，不能过多思考那里面的物理原理，因为显然那个月球基地好像正在漂离地球。但不管怎样，我们应该拥有一个月球基地阿尔法，也就是阿波罗计划之后的下一步：在月球上建立一个基地。所以你可以，比如说，你可以拥有一个，比如一个巨大的，你知道，在月球上研究宇宙本质的科学站，那会非常酷。

所以，说到比如什么时候可以去火星，你每2年或者每26个月可以去一次火星。

所以下一次前往火星的机会是在明年年底，大约18个月后。所以11月、12月是下一次前往火星的机会。我们会努力赶上那个窗口。如果走运的话，我认为我们现在大概有50、50的机会，因为我们必须。所以我们必须解决在轨加注问题，才能有足够的能力前往火星。但如果我们及时实现了在轨加注，那么我们将在明年年底向火星发射第一艘无人星舰。

所以这张图向你展示了，一艘宇宙飞船是怎样，是怎样从地球前往火星的？那里有蓝色的地球和红色的火星。

而且我是说，在方舟上实际行进的距离接近月球距离的1000倍。所以你不能直接前往火星。你必须形成这样一条椭圆轨道，地球位于其中一点，而火星位于椭圆远端的另一侧。然后要把握时间，时间，那条轨道上你所在的位置，或者说在那条椭圆上的位置，使其与火星相交。而这，所以这就是轨道转移，也就是怎样完成从地球到火星的轨道转移。

如果你看看自己的星链 Wi-Fi 路由器，就会看到这张图，因为星链 Wi-Fi 就是，星链。互联网正是用来为人类前往火星提供资金的。所以我只想感谢外面所有支持星链的人，因为你们正在帮助，帮助保障文明的未来，帮助让生命成为多、多行星物种，并帮助人类成为一个航天文明。谢谢。

所以这是这里的一份暂定行动计划，也就是我们希望，希望实现的目标：随着每个发射窗口的到来，大幅提高飞往火星的频率。所以大约每、每2年，我们都会大幅增加前往火星的飞船数量，并最终努力达到每次火星交会时有1000或2000艘飞船，你知道。

所以，这个，这个，我是说从粗略的数量级来看，这显然只是猜测，但我估计，我们需要把大约1000，大约、大约100万吨物资运到火星表面，才能让火星文明实现自给自足，并达到那个临界点：如果来自地球的补给船因为任何原因停止抵达，火星依然能够成功，火星依然能够发展。所以任何东西都不能缺。甚至连相当于维生素C之类的东西都不能缺。

你必须拥有火星发展所需的一切。

那是，那是必不可少的。所以我估计大约是100万吨。但也可能是1000万吨。我希望不是1亿吨。那可太多了。

但我们希望努力达到那个阶段，尽快保障文明的未来。

所以我们正在考察不同的地点。目前最主要的候选地点是阿卡迪亚地区。火星有大量土地，但当你把所有因素结合起来，说好吧，我们不能离两极太近，我们需要靠近冰层以获取水，而且对火箭来说地形不能过于多山时，范围就缩小到了一个较小的区域。所以阿卡迪亚是，我的一个女儿其实就叫阿卡迪亚，是选项之一。

所以我们让第一批星舰在火星上收集关键数据。所以首批，首批前往那里的飞行任务将携带Optimus 机器人，这样我们就可以去那里探索，并在一定程度上为人类探路。如果我们能够通过在明年年底发射来实现这一目标，那将会是一幅非常酷的画面。严格来说，实际上会在2027年抵达。但看到Optimus 在火星表面四处行走，将会是一幅史诗般的画面。

然后在2年后的发射中，我们将把人类送过去。假设第一批任务取得成功并成功着陆，我们就会在，在下一次任务中把人类送过去，并真正开始建设火星的基础设施。所以不管怎样，也许为了稳妥起见，我们可能会先让乐观主义者进行2、2次着陆，然后第3次再让人类着陆。到时再看。

就是那张帝国大厦工人的经典照片。

然后在火星上的通信方面，我们将使用某个版本的星链在火星上提供互联网。

对。所以光速，即使以光速传播，在最理想的情况下，我猜，我想，到火星大约需要3分半钟。而最糟糕的情况则是22分钟或更久，因为火星位于太阳相对于地球的另一侧。

所以不管怎样，与火星进行高带宽通信相当具有挑战性，但星链将会实现这一点。

对。然后我们将让第一批人类为在火星表面永久驻留打下基础。

而且，对，就像我说的，目标将是尽快让火星实现自给自足。

所以，这大致展示了火星上第一座城市会是什么样子。我猜我们可能会把发射台放得更远一点，或者把着陆台放远一点，以防万一。但在火星上，我们会需要大量太阳能。我们会，你知道，因为你，你其实无法在火星表面四处行走，至少目前还不行，要等到火星被地球化得像地球一样。你，你需要穿着火星服四处行走，而且，你知道，起初会待在某种玻璃穹顶里，但这是可行的。

而且最终，我们可以把火星变成一个地球。就像。

我们希望达到这样一个程度：在每个火星转移窗口运送超过100万吨。那样就算是一个真正的文明了，每个转移窗口达到百万吨级。

所以，是的，会有很多太空港。我的意思是，因为你无法连续不断地飞往那里，而必须在这些窗口期进行转移，所以会有ousand艘飞船、2000艘飞船，或者更多飞船聚集在一起。所以看起来，会有点像《太空堡垒卡拉狄加》那种感觉，所有这些飞船都在轨道上等待出发，然后全部出发。

我觉得所有这些飞船同时出发会是一幅令人惊叹的画面。然后很明显，你会需要很多发射台、很多火星着陆台，否则就需要相当快地把飞船移出着陆台。

所以如果你有，你有，我不知道，几千艘飞船正在飞来。可能至少需要几百个台，着陆台。总之，我们以后再解决那个问题。

所以，是的，总之，这就像是一件不可思议的事情，能在火星上拥有这样一座令人惊叹的城市，另一颗行星上的第一座城市，而且。

一个新世界。

而且我认为，这也是一个让火星人重新思考他们希望文明成为何种样貌的机会。所以你或许可以重新思考，比如你想要什么样的政府形式？你想制定什么新规则？

火星上有很大的自由和机会，可以对文明进行一次重新编译，而这将由火星人决定。

所以，好吧，把它完成。

谢谢大家。

Yeah, there you go.

All right. The gateway to Mars.

So here we are, here we are at the newly incorporated Starbase Texas.

This is the first new city made in America in, I think, quite a few decades, that, at least that's what I'm told. And very cool name. And it's named that because it is where we're going to develop the technology necessary to take humanity and civilization and life as we know it to another planet for the first time in the four and a half billion year history of Earth.

So go with this little video here. This is how it started off, with basically nothing. So they started off as basically a sandbar with nothing.

Even those little things we built, obviously.

That's the original sort of Mad Max rocket.

This is where you discover light lighting is very important for that Mad Max rocket.

So, yeah, not that ago there was basically nothing here. And in the space of about five or six years, thanks to the incredible work of the SpaceX team, we've built a small city and we've built two gigantic launch pads and a gigantic rocket factory for a gigantic rocket. So, and the cool thing is, for anyone out there who's watching this, you can actually come and visit because our entire production facility and launch site are on a public highway.

So anyone comes who comes to South Texas can come and see the rocket pretty close up and see the factory. And so anyone who's interested in seeing the largest flying object on Earth can come here anytime they want and just drive down the public highway and see it, which is pretty cool. So then we progress to where we are now, StarVase 2025.

So we're now at the point where we can produce a ship roughly every two or three weeks.

Now, we don't always produce the ship every two or three weeks because we are making design upgrades. But ultimately we're aiming the ability to produce a thousand ships a year, so three ships a day.

So that's where things are now. I'm standing in that building, That's our hovercraft.

We're driving a booster down the road to the launch site.

You can see the mega bays.

And as I said, what's cool, the cool thing for those out there watching this video is that you can actually just literally come here, drive down the road and see it, which is the first time in history that that's been possible. So all this cool stuff you that, that that road on the left there, that highway is public and you can just come here and see it, which I recommend doing. I think it's very inspiring to See, so that's our gigabay.

So where we're expanding integration to produce a thousand starships per year.

Well yeah, that hasn't been built yet, but we're building it.

That is a truly enormous structure. This will be one that'll be one of the biggest structures, I think by some measures the biggest structure in the world.

And it's designed for a thousand starships a year.

We're also building a gigabay in Florida bringing, so we'll have two facilities, one in Texas and one in Florida.

It's actually difficult to gauge the size of these buildings because you need a kind of human for scale. When you see how tiny a human is next to that building, you realize just how enormous it is.

So when we look at our build comparison vehicles per year, and so you look at Boeing and Airbus making airplanes, Starship will be making at some point probably as many starships for Mars as Boeing and Airbus make commercial airplanes. So this is really at a scale, enormous scale. And each starship will have a capability.

Each starship is bigger than a 747 or an A380. Like it's truly enormous.

And then in terms of Starship Starlink satellites, the version three satellites making on the order of 5,000 a year, maybe at some point closer to 10,000 a year. And those sonic V3 satellites are each the size of roughly a 737. They're pretty big.

That compares to the B24 bomber in World War II.

Now it's still small compared to Tesla.

So and Tesla will probably doing, you know, double or triple that volume in the future. So it just puts things into perspective that it is actually possible to build a vast number of interplanetary starships. And even when you can compare things on the tonnage standpoint, Tesla and other car companies still building far more complex manufactured tonnage than than SpaceX. Which is really a way of saying that it's very achievable.

Like these numbers, while they are insanely high by traditional space standards, are achievable by humans because they have been achieved in other industries. Progress is measured by the timeline to establishing a self sustaining civilization on Mars. That's how we're gauging our progress here at Starbase. So with each launch, especially in the early days of Starship, each launch is about learning more and more about what's needed to make life multi planetary and to improve starship to the point where it can be taking ultimately hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people to Mars.

Ideally we can take anyone who wants to go to Mars? We can take to Mars and bring with it, bring all of the equipment necessary to make Mars self sustaining so Mars can grow by itself in a worst case scenario. Getting to the point where the fundamental fork in the road for human destiny is where Mars can continue to grow even if the supply ships from Earth stop coming for any reason. At that point we've achieved civilizational resilience where Mars can potentially come to the rescue of Earth if something goes wrong.

Or maybe Earth could come to the rescue of Mars, but, well, but having two planets that are, that are, that can, that, that are both self sustaining and strong I think is going to be incredibly important for the long term survival of civilization.

So like just, I think any given civilization is likely to last maybe, I don't know, 10 times longer, maybe much longer if it is a multi planet civilization than if it is a single planet civilization. Because there's always some chance that, you know, us humans could do something crazy like World War Three. Hopefully not, but it's possible. Or that there could be some natural event like meteors or super volcanoes or something that we don't expect.

And then if you only have one planet, then that could be curtains. But if we got two planets, we keep going and then we go beyond Mars ultimately to maybe the asteroid belt, the moons of Jupiter and beyond, and ultimately to other star systems and we can be out there among the stars making science fiction no longer fiction. So in order to achieve this goal, we have to be, we have to make rapidly reusable rockets so that the, the cost per flight, the cost per ton to Mars is as low as possible.

That's essential. So for that rapidly reusable rockets, I said it's actually four hours or it's like a pirate, it's like rapidly reusable. Reliable rockets is the key. Rrrr.

Now we've congrats the SpaceX team on making incredible progress on catching a giant rocket.

So it's really mind blowing that the SpaceX team has been able to catch the largest flying object ever made multiple times using a very novel method of catching it out of the air with giant chopsticks.

I mean, have you ever seen that before?

Yeah, congrats again. That was an incredible achievement.

So the reason we are catching it in this way, which has never been done before, is in order to achieve the rapidly reusable portion of the, in order to make the rocket rapidly reusable. So if it is, if the super heavy booster, which is gigantic, it's like 30ft in diameter.

If it were to land with landing legs on a landing pad, we would then have to pick it up, stow the legs and put it back in the launch pad. And that's, it's quite difficult to transport such a large thing. But if we catch it with the same tower that it's used to put it in the launch mount to begin with, that is the best case outcome for rapid reuse. So it literally gets caught by the same arms that placed it in the launch in launch ring and then it is placed back in the launch ring immediately.

So in principle, the super heavy booster can be reflown within an hour of landing. So it comes back in about five or six minutes one way or another. And, and then it gets caught by the tower arms placed back in the launch mount. And then you can refill propellant in about 30 to 40 minutes and, and place a ship on top of it. And in principle refly the entire booster every hour, maybe every two hours to be, give it a little bit of extra time.

But let's just say it's, it's very, it's in the limit of rapid reuse.

And then we, the next thing we need to do is catch the ship too.

So we haven't done this yet, but we will.

So that's what we hope to demonstrate later this year, maybe as soon as two or three months from now.

And then the ship would be placed on top of the booster and then again refilled with repellent and flown again with the ship. It takes a bit longer because it's got to orbit Earth a few times until the ground track comes back over the launch pad. But the ship is also intended to be reflown multiple times per day.

This is the, the new Raptor 3, which is an awesome engine. Big hand to the Raptor team for this. This is very exciting.

So Raptor 3 is designed to require no basic heat shield, saving a lot of mass on the bottom and actually improving reliability. So that if, if there is for example, small fuel leak from the Raptor engine, it will simply leak into the existing flaming plasma and not really matter. Whereas a fuel leak when the engines are contained in a box is a very scary thing indeed. So this is a Raptor 3. It'll take it probably a few kicks at the can, but it will be is a massive increase in payload capability, in engine efficiency and in reliability.

So this is really a revolutionary engine. Raptor 3 is really, I'd say, kind of alien technology rocket engine.

I mean even industry experts, when we showed a picture of the Raptor 3 said that engine is not complete. So then we said well here's the engine not complete. Firing at a level of efficiency that has never been achieved before.

So.

I mean that is one clean engine.

So in order to make the engine like that, we had to simplify. So many parts of the design incorporate secondary fluid circuits and electronics in the structure of the engine itself. So everything is contained and protected. It is a marvel of engineering, frankly.

Then one of the other technologies that's key for Mars is doing orbital propellant transfer. So you can think of this like similar to aerial refueling for airplanes, but in this case it's orbital refilling of rockets, which has never been done before. But it is, you know, technically feasible.

Always feel like these things are a little NSFW sort of listen, you got to transfer fluid somehow. There's no, this has got to be done.

So the two starships would get together and one starship would transfer fuel and oxygen. And actually most of the mass is oxygen. It's almost 80% oxygen that gets transferred a little over 20% fuel. And, and so what you, so you send a starship to orbit with that's full of payload and then you send a bunch of other starships up and you would refill the propellant on that starship. And once the propellant tanks are mostly full, then you can depart for the Mars.

For Mars or the moon or. Yeah. So this is an important technology which we should hopefully demonstrate next year.

So then with one of the toughest problems to solve is the reusable heat shield.

So no one has ever developed a truly reusable orbital heat shield so that it's extremely difficult to do. So even the shuttle shuttles heat shield required several months of refurbishment, basically fixing broken tiles, testing each tile. And because it's an extremely hard problem to be able to withstand the extreme heat and pressure of re entry.

And the only things that can really withstand this level of heat are advanced sort of ceramics kind of, you know, basically glass alumina, sometimes of carbon. Carbon. But very, very little actually can survive the with, with reusability without getting, without eroding or falling off or cracking, can survive the stresses of reentry. So this will be the first time that it's done that a reusable orbital heat shield is developed.

And it needs to be obviously extremely reliable.

So this will be something that we're working on for a few years I think to keep honing the heat shield.

It's a very, it is an achievable thing. So we're not trying to do something that isn't achievable. It is within the realm of physics to get this done. Just an extraordinarily difficult thing to get done.

And Mars, the Mars atmosphere is carbon dioxide, which at first may seem better, but actually it ends up being worse because when the CO2 turns into a plasma and you've got, you actually end up with more free oxygen entering on a Mars atmosphere than on Earth atmosphere. So Earth's atmosphere is only around 20% oxygen. And Mars ends up being basically more than double that, maybe triple that when you consider when the CO2 becomes a plasma and you get carbon and O2.

So the, that wants to oxidize the heat shield, basically burn the heat shield. So that's why we, we tested very rigorously in a CO2 atmosphere because it's got to work not just for Earth, but also for Mars.

And we want to use the same heat shield for Earth that we use for Mars. Because there are many other factors with the heat shield such as making sure the tiles don't crack or fall off or anything like that.

So we want to have the same heat shield structure, same material on Earth as on Mars. So we can test it hundreds of times on Earth before going to Mars and be confident that when it goes to Mars it will work.

So we developing some next generation starships which are have a number of improvements versus our current gen. So it's taller for example, and has a better enter kind of a. The interstage between the ship and the booster. You can see that sort of the sort of struts there that makes it easier for the flame. Ah, like that right there.

When doing hot staging, which is when we light the ship's engines while the booster's engines are still firing the, the flame from the, from the ship engines can more easily exit through the, the open struts of the, of the new interstage. And in this case we'll bring the struts interstage back with us instead of throwing it away.

So a little more height here, 72 meters from around 69 propellant capacity. I think we'll probably push that up a little, maybe 3,700 tons.

Long term. My guess is we're maybe around 4,000 tons and but just sort of just over 8, you know, sort of 8,000, probably like 8,300. This will keep getting up. My guess is ultimately we're 4,000 tons here, close to 10,000 tons of thrust. But this is kind of the next, the next level or the next version of the super Heavy.

So the booster will look a little naked on the bottom because the, the Raptor 3 engines don't require a heat shield. So look like, it looks like there's kind of parts missing. But that's just because the, the Raptor heat shield does not, the Raptor 3 does not need a heat shield. So it's just, it's just standing there there in a bathed in flaming plasma.

But it's a lot lighter.

Yep. Integrated hot stage.

I think it looks amazing.

And the shift's a little, little more, a little longer, a little more capable.

Moving to 1550 tons of propellant capacity.

My guess is this probably ends up 20% more than this long term.

And yeah you can see the heat shield is sleeker. So much smoother boundaries as the boundary of the heat shield going to the leeward side is very smooth.

No more jagged tiles.

I think it looks very sleek.

So in this version we still have six engines, but a future version will have nine. But with the Raptor 3 again we have improved reduced mass, higher specific impulse. It's, this is The Starship version 3 is really the version that is I think achieves all of the key elements. I mean generally with any new technology it takes three major, three major iterations of any major, of any new technology to have it really work well.

And this with Raptor 3 with, and Starship and Booster version 3 we, it should be able to achieve all of the things that I just mentioned, which is a rapidly reusable reliable rocket with orbital refilling.

Basically all of the ingredients necessary to make life multi planetary will be achieved with version 3 of Starship which we're aiming to launch for the first time at the end of this year.

Yeah so you can see this is kind of where things are on the left, where things will be end of this year in the middle. And as I was saying, sort of where things will be probably long term.

Yeah,142 meters.

So, the one in the middle is, will be fully capable of doing Mars and thereafter it'll be a lot of performance improvements.

And as has been the case with Falcon 9, we always end up making the rocket longer and increasing payload. So that's, that's, that's the game plan pretty straightforward. But it's important to emphasize even with the rocket that will be launching just at the end of this year, it will be capable of making life multi planetary and thereafter it's, it's just about continuing to hone the efficiency and capability of the rocket and reduce the cost per ton and reduce the Cost per person to Mars.

And like I said, ultimately make it so that anyone who wants to move to Mars and help build a new civilization can do so. So anyone out there, like, how cool that would that be? And even if you don't want to do it, maybe that you have a son or daughter who wants to do that or a friend who wants to do it. And I think it would be the adventure, the best adventure that one could possibly do is to go and help build a new civilization on a new planet.

So yeah, ultimately we'll, we'll have 42 engines, which it was inevitable.

As the prophecy foretold by the great prophet Douglas Adams in his, you know, book the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the answer to the meaning of life is 42.

And so inevitably the Starship stack will have 42 engines.

And in terms of payload to orbit, what's remarkable is that it's 200 tons of, you know, Starship will have 200 tons payload to orbit with full reusability. So this is twice the capability of the Saturn V moon rocket. The Saturn 5 moon rocket was fully expendable. Starship is fully reusable, but will have twice the payload to orbit of the, the next biggest rocket that made it to orbit, which is a Saturn V.

In fact, if without reusability, Starship would have about 400 tons of payload to orbit. So this is a, this is a very big rocket is what I'm saying. So, but you need a big rocket, you know, to you know, make life multi planetary. And then along the way we could do very cool things like have a moon base like Moon Base Alpha because there's longer. There was a TV show about Moon Base Alpha.

You can't, couldn't think about the physics of that too much because apparently like the moon base was like drifting away from Earth. But anyway, we should have a moon Base Alpha, which is the next step after the Apollo program would be to have a base on the moon. So you could like, you could have a, like a gigantic, you know, science station doing research about the nature of the universe on the moon would be very cool.

So in terms of like, when can you go to Mars so you can go to Mars every two years or every 26 months.

So the next Mars opportunity is at the end of next year in about 18 months. So November, December is the next Mars opportunity. So we'll try to make that opportunity. If we get lucky, I think we'll probably have a 50, 50 chance right now because we've got to. So we've got to figure out orbital refilling in order to have enough capability to go to Mars. But if we achieve orbital refilling in time, then we will launch the first uncrewed starship to Mars at the end of next year.

So this gives you an illustration of how does, how does a spaceship go from Earth to Mars? So you got blue Earth there and red Mars.

And I mean the actual distance traveled on the Ark is close to like a thousand times further than the Moon. So you can't just go straight to Mars. You have to create this elliptical orbit with Earth at one point and Mars at the other side at the far end of the ellipse. And then time, the time the, where you are in that or in that ellipse to intersect with Mars. And this, so this is the orbital transfer, how you do orbital transfer from Earth to Mars.

And if you look on your Starlink WI fi router, you'll see this image because the Starlink WI fi is what is Starlink. Internet is what's being used to pay for humanity getting to Mars. So I just like to thank everyone out there who support Starlink because you're helping, helping secure the future of civilization and helping make life multi, multi planetary and helping make humanity a space bearing civilization. Thank you.

So this is a tentative game plan here where we're hoping to, that we're hoping to achieve, where we increase the cadence of flights to Mars dramatically with every launch window. So every, every roughly two years, we are dramatically increasing the number of ships that go to Mars and ultimately try to get to a thousand or two thousand ships, you know, per Mars rendezvous.

So the, the, I mean as a rough order of magnitude, this just guesses obviously, but we need to get about a thousand, about, about a million tons is my guess, to the surface of Mars to make a civilization on Mars self sustaining and getting to that critical point where if the, if the resupply ships from Earth stop coming for any reason, Mars still succeeds, Mars can still grow. And so you can't be missing anything. You can't be missing even like the equivalent of vitamin C or anything.

You've got to have everything you need for Mars to grow.

That's, that's essential. So my guess is that's about a million tons. But it might be 10 million tons. I hope it's not 100 million tons. That'd be a lot.

But we want to try to get to that point and secure the future of civilization as quickly as possible.

So we're looking at different locations. The lead candidate right now is the Arcadia region. So Mars has a lot of real estate, but when you combine all of the factors and say okay, we need, we can't be too close to the poles, we need to be near ice to get water and can't be too mountainous for the rockets, then it narrows down to a smaller region. So Arcadia is one of my daughter's name is Arcadia actually is one of the options.

So we got the first starships on Mars gather critical data. So the first, the first flights there will send with the Optimus robot so we can go out there and explore and kind of prepare the way for humans. And that'll be a very cool image if we're able to achieve it by launching end of next year. Would actually technically arrive in 2027. But that would be an epic picture to see Optimus walking around on the surface of Mars.

And then with the launching two years later, we would be sending humans. Assuming the first missions are successful and they land successfully, would send humans on, on the next mission and we really start building the infrastructure for Mars. So anyway, maybe just to be safe and we might just do two, two landing episodes with the optimists and do the third one with humans. We'll see.

So that classic picture of the workers on the Empire State.

And then for communications on Mars we'll be using a version of Starlink to provide Internet on Mars.

Yeah. So the speed of light, even at moving at the speed of light, your best case scenario is I guess, I think around three and a half minutes to Mars. And then worst case is 22 minutes or more because Mars is on the other side of the sun from Earth.

So anyway, it's quite challenging to do high bandwidth communications with Mars, but Starlink will achieve that.

Yeah. And then we'll have the first humans lay the groundwork for permanent presence on the surface.

And yeah, the goal, like I said, will be to make Mars self sustaining as quickly as possible.

So it's just a sort of rough idea of what things will be like for the first city on Mars. My guess is we'll probably put the launch pads a little further away or the landing pads just in case. But for Mars we're going to need a lot of solar power. We'll be, you know, since you, you can't really walk around on the surface of Mars at least as yet until Mars is terraformed to be like Earth. The you, you need to walk around with a Mars suit and be, you know, initially in kind of glass domes, but it would work.

And eventually we can make Mars into An Earth. Like.

We want to get to the point where we're transferring over a million tons at every Mars transfer window. And then that's like a serious civilization, a megaton per transfer window.

So, yeah, I have a lot of spaceports. I mean, because of the fact that you can't fly there continuously and you have to transfer in these windows, you'd have a gathering of a ousand ships or 2000 ships or more than that. So we look, have this kind of like Battlestar Galactica feel where all these ships are in orbit waiting to depart and then that all depart.

I think an amazing image of all these ships departing at once. And then you're going to need, obviously a lot of launch pads, a lot of landing pads on Mars, or you'll need to move the ships off the landing pad pretty fast.

So if you get it, you got, I don't know, a few thousand ships inbound. Probably need at least a few hundred pads, landing pads. And anyway, we'll solve that problem later.

So, yeah, anyway, this is, this is like an incredible thing to have like this amazing city on Mars, the first city on another planet and.

A new world.

And it's also an opportunity to, I think, for the Martians to rethink how they want civilization to be. So you can maybe rethink like what kind of form of government do you want? What new rules do you want to have?

There's a lot of freedom and opportunity in Mars to do a recompile on civilization, which will be up to the Martians.

So, all right, get it done.

Thank you, everyone.